I am delighted to announce the launch of Creative Commons’ new strategy for 2021-2025.

This strategy is the result of over three months of stakeholder engagement, dozens of consultations, and hundreds of conversations held among Creative Commons’ multiple collaborators, including staff, funders, the CC Board of directors, as well as a wide range of individuals within the CC community, particularly members of the Creative Commons Global Network (CCGN). The strategy development process was designed to be inclusive and transparent with the aim of co-creating a strategy that is ambitious, nuanced, and relevant to the people that make up Creative Commons around the globe.

This strategy truly represents a fresh start for Creative Commons. It provides clarity on the values that define us as an organization: leadership, intention, inclusivity. It depicts our vision for the world we want to see: a world where equitable sharing of knowledge and culture purposefully serves the public interest. It also expresses our mission: to empower the people and communities that we serve by equipping them with legal, technical, and policy solutions that they require in order to address real challenges on the ground.

This strategy provides an exciting development for CC. It sharpens our focus on core goals that emphasize shared knowledge and culture; facts, ideas, and dreams shared equitably, with long term impact and resilience. It emphasizes that our objective is not necessarily only to promote more sharing, but to foster better sharing of knowledge and culture. It builds upon our copyright licenses and tools, and I am thrilled for us to embrace a broad-based approach to open sharing. 

Over the course of the next five years, Creative Commons will deliver on the strategy’s three core goals by engaging in activities involving advocacy, infrastructure innovation, and capacity building.

Developing the strategy has been a joint effort and a true testament to the values of collaboration and inclusivity that we at CC hold dear. I want to thank all of those–you know who you are–who provided advice, guidance, and wisdom to help craft this document. I want to acknowledge my colleagues at Creative Commons who have shared their ideas and helped shape the strategy; their energy and commitment throughout the process were unflinching. In particular, I am immensely grateful to Sarah Pearson, Senior Counsel; and Brigitte Vézina, Policy Manager, who led the strategy development process with commendable dedication.

I look forward to embarking on this journey and working with all of CC’s collaborators, supporters, and partners in the open movement and beyond to secure a successful future.